The Indigo King - James A. Owen [59]
“I’m here as a watcher only,” Hank replied. “I’m to observe and record, but never interfere.”
“And who are you watching for?” Hugo asked.
Hank blinked in surprise. “Weren’t you sent here to watch too?” he asked. “By the Caretakers?”
Hugo brightened, slightly relieved. This might be a friend. “No, I wasn’t,” he said, proffering his hand. “Hugo Dyson, newly itinerant friend of the Caretakers. I’m here by accident, I’m afraid.”
Hank’s eyes narrowed at this. “By accident?” he said, repeating Hugo’s words as they shook hands. “By accident?How is that possible? I thought I was the only one that had happened to. Usually these jaunts into zero points are too well-planned for someone to come ‘by accident.’”
Hank turned away from Hugo, muttering and grumbling under his breath. He removed the heavy gauntlets he’d been wearing and pulled a small, leather-bound notebook out of his tunic. He flipped through the pages, occasionally making a notation with a stub of a pencil, and less occasionally, glancing back at Hugo with a halfhearted smile.
Finally Hank finished checking whatever he’d needed to find in the notebook and pulled a silver pocket watch out of a pocket sewn into his sleeve.
“If you’ll excuse me,” he said to Hugo, “I need to let someone know about you, posthaste. You see, I don’t think you’re supposed to be here at all.”
Hugo swallowed hard. “I keep getting the same feeling, Mr. Morgan, the same feeling exactly. The problem is, I can’t decide if I’m in someplace strange, or if this is a joke of some sort, or if I’m only in a dream.”
Hank laughed and clapped him on the back. “I know just how you feel. The first time I ‘went out,’ I’d been conked in the noggin by a fellow called Hercules in a factory back in Hartford. When I woke up, I was here. Well,” he added, scratching his head and examining the watch, “not ‘here’ here, exactly. More like thirty years from now, give or take. But one thing I came to realize was that it wasn’t a dream. And you’d best realize that too, if you want to keep your head on your shoulders.”
Hugo gulped hard again and fingered his collar.
Hank smiled drolly. “I’m only half-joking,” he said, “but I’ll do my best to see you’re taken care of until we’re done here, and then we’ll see about getting you back when you belong.”
“Where I belong, you mean?” said Hugo.
Hank frowned. “You really don’t know what’s going on, do you?” he asked rhetorically. “When do you think you are?”
“It’s the twentieth of September, 1931,” Hugo replied.
Hank didn’t reply to this but squinted at the silver watch and turned two of the dials set in its side. The watch began to chime, then buzzed harshly. He tapped it on his armor, then shook it. “Dratted machine,” he complained. “Something’s off. I don’t think I can get a message to anyone much earlier than about a decade and a half before your prime time, but that ought to give them sufficient notice to set things aright before you leave.”
He said all this as if it would mean something to Hugo, then realized that the scholar hadn’t comprehended a word of it. “Never mind,” Hank said with a wave. “Just wait here and try to stay out of everyone’s way. I’ll send the message for you and see if the Frenchman can’t help somehow, and then I have to finish my report for Sam. And I can’t do either out in the open.”
With that, he began to stride off, leaving the hapless Hugo sitting in the grass, holding his helmet and gauntlets. “But wait!” Hugo called. “Who’s Sam?”
“The man who sent me here to begin with,” Hank answered over his shoulder without turning around. “Samuel Clemens, the Caretaker Principia of the Imaginarium Geographica.”
John and Jack took turns telling Meridian why they had come to Alexandria, with occasional contributions from Chaz. He seemed to have thoroughly mastered Greek far more quickly than they had thought possible, but however he’d done it, they were grateful. He had a keener sense than they did of which topics should be avoided and when, cutting in if he suspected